Call Of Cthulhu awakening in time to spook Halloween

Round Christmastime, it's a tradition in my family to play Don't Wake The Dreamer by tiptoeing around an uncle sleeping off the sherry in an armchair. You don't want to know what happens when the Dreamer awakens. Perhaps inspired by this, as well as the stories of a hippy named Happy Lovecraft who was obsessed with higher powers in the stars, Cyanide Studio will deliver a similar game in time for the year's actual best celebration, Halloween. Their investigate-o-RPG Call Of Cthulhu will launch on October 30th, they announced yesterday. Be careful when navigating the rustling maze of Cadbury Heroes wrappers around Cthulhu's feet.

Cyanide's Call Of Cthulu is not inspired by Happy Lovecraft's stories alone, rather filtered through Chaosium's Lovecraftian pen & paper RPG Call Of Cthulhu. A singleplayer computer game being a little less flexible than your chatty pals around a table, Cyanide are telling a single story.

We'll be in the gumshoes of detective in 1924 sent to investigate the deaths of a family on the isolated and foggy Darkwater Island. Rather than Miss Fisher this mystery with sparkling repartee and glamorous outfit changes, we'll go out our gourd as we tangle with cults, conspiracies, wacky science, and the biggest sleepy uncle.

Any Cthulhuian game which doesn't explode your mind and leave you a gibbering wreck after encountering even the mildest eldritch horror is a coward, I say. But even cowards can be fun, and Cyanide games are often... promising? They tend to be just too janky or offputting in ways that bury nice ideas, though do seem to be improving - the latest Styx did a lot right and our Matthew is enjoying ongoing episodic story 'em up The Council.

Call Of Cthulhu is coming via Steam on October 30, priced at £40/€45/$45.